John Muir Way honors conservationist in native Scotland

Dazzling coast-to-coast route honors conservationist in native land

Updated 3:30 pm, Friday, July 11, 2014

A girl and her father walk their dogs on John Muir Way, which passes through the estate of the Earl of Rosebery.

A girl and her father walk their dogs on John Muir Way, which passes through the estate of the Earl of Rosebery.

Photo: Special To The Chronicle

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Top: A girl and her father walk their dogs on the John Muir Way, which passes through the Earl of Rosebery's estate. Above: The village of East Linden is one of the many diversions along the 134-mile trail.

Top: A girl and her father walk their dogs on the John Muir Way, which passes through the Earl of Rosebery's estate. Above: The village of East Linden is one of the many diversions along the 134-mile trail.

Photo: Special To The Chronicle

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John Muir Way trail sign.

John Muir Way trail sign.

Photo: Special To The Chronicle

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A man and boy look out at the North Sea from Dunbar, the fishing village where John Muir was born.

A man and boy look out at the North Sea from Dunbar, the fishing village where John Muir was born.

Photo: Becky Duncan Photography, Scottish Natural Heritage

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John Muir Way passes under an imposing red railroad bridge at Queensferry, along the shore of the Firth of Forth, an ancient fiord of the River Forth.

John Muir Way passes under an imposing red railroad bridge at Queensferry, along the shore of the Firth of Forth, an ancient fiord of the River Forth.

Photo: Special To The Chronicle

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Blackness Castle, on the shore of the Firth of Forth, is one of several imposing castles along the John Muir Way.

Blackness Castle, on the shore of the Firth of Forth, is one of several imposing castles along the John Muir Way.

Photo: Becky Duncan Photography, Scottish Natural Heritage

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Bluebells blossom in spring on the estate belonging to the Earl of Rosebery.

Bluebells blossom in spring on the estate belonging to the Earl of Rosebery.

Photo: Special To The Chronicle

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The young John Muir honed the climbing skills he would use later for mountaineering on the craggy remains of Dunbar Castle.

The young John Muir honed the climbing skills he would use later for mountaineering on the craggy remains of Dunbar Castle.

Photo: Special To The Chronicle

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Near the town of East Linden, a stream-powered mill used to grind oatmeal. Photo by John Flinn

Near the town of East Linden, a stream-powered mill used to grind oatmeal. Photo by John Flinn

Photo: Special To The Chronicle

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Keith Geddes, one of the architects of the John Muir Way, walks past yellow flowering gorse.

Keith Geddes, one of the architects of the John Muir Way, walks past yellow flowering gorse.

Photo: Special To The Chronicle

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The tidepools at Dunbar where a young John Muir discovered his love of love of Òwild places and wild creatures." Photo by Becky Duncan Photography for Scottish Natural Heritage

The tidepools at Dunbar where a young John Muir discovered his love of love of Òwild places and wild creatures." Photo by Becky Duncan Photography for Scottish Natural Heritage

Photo: Becky Duncan Photography, Scottish Natural Heritage

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John Muir Way honors conservationist in native Scotland

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It's a wee bit of a stretch to say that America's national park system owes its grandeur to the foamy little Scottish tide pool I'm walking beside - but there's some truth to it.

It was here, and in the birdsong-serenaded meadow up ahead, that a local boy discovered his love of "wild places and wild creatures," stealing away with almost religious regularity to spend time with "crawling catfish and slippery wriggling snake-like eels" and to "hear the songs of the skylarks."

And then, at the age of 11, little Johnnie Muir moved to America.

Today he's revered in the United States - by one count, the Sierra Club founder has more natural features in America named after him than any other person - but, ironically, Muir isn't terribly well known in his native land. One recent poll found that only 23 percent of Scots had even heard of him.

A group of Scottish supporters has been working for years to change this. Their most ambitious effort to date opened in April: The John Muir Way, a new coast-to-coast trail winding 134 miles across central Scotland, from Muir's birthplace in Dunbar on the North Sea to the Firth of Clyde on the West Coast.

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It's nothing like its California cousin, John Muir Trail, the epic, high-altitude route that stretches for 211 miles through the craggy Sierra Nevada. This is a gentle, low-level footpath designed for casual walking, and you're rarely more than an hour or two from a welcoming pub or tea room.

But the variety of landscapes and diversions is dazzling: the misty shores of Loch Lomond; a hilltop Iron Age fort; the island thought to have inspired Robert Louis Stevenson's "Treasure Island;" the cobbled streets of Edinburgh; offshore rocks where you can spot puffins and other seabirds; and plenty of castles - at least one of which, I discovered, is still very much in use.

Like Britain's other long-distance trails, the Muir Way can easily be broken up into shorter walks of anywhere from an hour to an afternoon to a week. It's ideal for visitors looking to sample the places that shaped and inspired America's greatest conservationist.

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Base to explore trail

Making a base in Edinburgh, I discovered, is a great way to explore the trail. Frequent and convenient trains reach both ends and many points in between.

Dunbar, the picturesque fishing village where Muir grew up, is close enough that it now serves as a bedroom community for commuters. I was joined on the 25-minute train ride by Keith Geddes, head of the Central Scotland Green Network and one of the architects of the John Muir Way.

"We're hoping the trail will help teach young Scots about one of our greatest emigrants," he said, "a man whose message is even more relevant today."

Muir's childhood home at 126 High St. - where his stern father ran a successful oatmeal business - is now a museum dedicated to the life and work of the naturalist, and it's well worth an hour's visit.

Among other things, it notes that because of his influential books and articles, and his role in the creation of four national parks, Muir is often called "the father of America's national park system."

Muir was famously fearless of heights - he once rode out a Sierra storm 100 feet up in a wildly swaying Douglas fir - and I shuddered as I gazed up at the third-story window where the laddie once dangled out over the street, holding on with just a single finger while, he would later write, "the wind was making a balloon out of my nightgown."

The John Muir Way begins (or ends, depending which way you walk) at the museum's doorstep. We were joined there by John Thomas, chairman of the John Muir Birthplace Trust, and Muir biographer Will Collin on a walk down to Dunbar's fishing harbor.

Looming above the harbor are what's left of Dunbar Castle, on whose crumbling ramparts young Muir honed the climbing skills that would make him one of America's foremost mountaineers. "That I did not fall and finish my rock-scrambling in those adventurous boyhood days," he would recall, "seems now a reasonable wonder."

The trail led us along the cliff tops where the boy would go "to watch the waves in awful storms thundering on the black headlands and craggy ruins of old Dunbar Castle."

Since Muir is so firmly associated with the mountains, it was a surprise to discover that his lifelong passion for nature began in tide pools at the edge of the North Sea. The pathway took us past the pools where he was brought to bathe as an infant, and where, later, he would come to "gaze and wonder at the shells and the seaweeds, eels and crabs."

In John Muir County Park, we crossed the field where he came to "listen with enthusiasm to the songs of the skylarks," enjoying "the most delicious melody, sweet and clear and strong, overflowing all bounds." I cupped my hand to my ear, but alas never heard anything I was certain was a skylark.

No place off-limits

One of the unbeatable things about walking in Britain is that almost no place is off-limits. The John Muir Way carries on this tradition: The following morning I found myself sauntering across the grand estate of the Earl of Rosebery.

A short train ride from Edinburgh brought me to South Queensferry, where I stopped for a spot of hydration at the Hawes Inn, which dates to the 17th century and features in Stevenson's novel "Kidnapped."

Underneath an imposing red railroad bridge, the footpath heads east along the shore of the Firth of Forth, an ancient fiord and estuary of the River Forth. Almost immediately I came to a gate opening onto the Dalmeny Estate, the 1,000-acre spread that has served as home to successive earls for more than three centuries.

The forest floor was carpeted with bluebells, the ethereal British flower that flourishes each spring until the spreading canopy chokes off its light. The trail here is on a paved bridle path - a godsend on a drizzly, muddy day.

On the hilltop above stands Dalmeny House, the Gothic revival mansion where the current Earl hangs his hat. It's open for guided tours in June and July and houses all manner of treasures and curiosities, from Napoleon's shaving stand to a sea chest thought to have belonged to Captain Cook to a "Scold's Bridle" a medieval contraption designed to silence a nagging woman. "There is no record of it having been used at Dalmeny," reassures the estate's website.

I continued along the shoreline toward the irresistibly named Barnbougle Castle, expecting another scenic jumble of ruins. But this castle, which dates to the 13th century and was extensively renovated in the 1880s, is intact and belongs very much to the present.

A sign beside an unlocked gate politely asks walkers to respect the occupants' privacy, so I didn't go up to the front door. But I could see a Land Rover - presumably belonging to Lord Dalmeny, heir to the title - parked in the driveway.

His great grandfather, the 5th Earl of Rosebery, served as British prime minister late in Queen Victoria's reign and renovated Barnbougle so he could practice his speeches there. Today it houses the family's extensive library.

On my way back to the rail station I stopped at Hound Point, which figures notably in Barnbougle lore. According to legend, a man with a big black dog mysteriously appears there and sounds a bugle whenever the castle's lord is about to shuffle off this mortal coil.

Sure enough, a figure soon appeared with dog in tow. It was a boy of about 10 with a small, gray-and-white Yorkshire terrier. No bugle. The earl was safe for now.

Scenic section

One of the most lavishly scenic sections of the John Muir Way is said to be the 9-mile stretch from Helensburgh, on the Firth of Clyde, over Ben Bowie (which, at 1,027 feet barely qualifies for the traditional British label of "mountain") and down to Loch Lomond.

That was my goal the next morning when I set off from Edinburgh, but, this being Scotland, the weather had other plans. By the time my train reached Glasgow the skies were low, sodden and sullen. On the fly, I switched my ticket to the village of Balloch, on the south shore of Loch Lomond. I'd walk as far up Ben Bowie as weather and conditions allowed, then retreat to the warmth of a convivial pub.

Half an hour out of Balloch I was strolling on an ancient path known as Stoneymollan Road - a "coffin road" built for funeral processions up the hill to consecrated ground at the Cardross church, 4 1/2 miles away. That's a long way to carry a coffin, and every few hundred yards I came across raised flat stones that allowed weary pallbearers to set down their burden for a short rest.

Bracken and yellow flowering gorse dotted an open grassland my map identified as Stoneymollan Muir. ("Muir," it turns out, is the Scottish version of "moor," a tract of uncultivated land.)

I should have been high enough for good views of Loch Lomond, a lake long celebrated by Scots in song and verse. The only time John Muir returned to Scotland, at the age of 55, he made sure to visit it. But on this soggy day it was misty and drizzling, and there wasn't much to see. I tightened the hood on my parka and pressed on.

Scots are hardy walkers, and I met many of them out with their dogs in weather they insisted was "fine." They were as friendly as could be, but most spoke Glaswegian, a patois virtually incomprehensible to anyone not born and raised in Glasgow. I smiled and nodded a lot.

I was on my way back down the hill when, for a brief moment, the mist lifted, the gloomy gray clouds parted and ethereal beams of light shone down on Loch Lomond. I half expected to hear a celestial choir.

Almost everything I could see - the brooding dark lake and the plump and inviting mountains behind it - was set aside and protected as Scotland's first-ever national park in 2002.

Hmmmm. A national park. I wonder where they got that idea?

If you go

Getting there

There are no nonstop flights from San Francisco to Edinburgh. British Airways offers flights connecting through London. An overnight train, the Caledonia Sleeper, departs London at 11:50 p.m. and arrives in Edinburgh at 7:20 a.m. the next morning. It's not cheap - I paid $246 for a private compartment - but considering it saves you the cost of a hotel room and a day of travel, it's worth considering.

Where to stay

Apex Waterloo Place Hotel: 23-27 Waterloo Place, Edinburgh; 131 441 0440; www.apexhotels.co.uk/edinburgh. A smart and modern hotel with a great location across from the Waverly Rail Station at the foot of Princes Street. Rooms from $177.

Adria House: 11-12 Royal Terrace, Edinburgh; 131 556 7875; www.adriahouse.co.uk. A more traditional bed and breakfast in a quiet neighborhood across from the Royal Terrace Gardens. En-suite doubles around $136 including full Scottish breakfast.

More information

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